The Genius of Kinship
The Genius of Kinship

Author: German Valentinovich Dziebel

Publisher: Cambria Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 1934043656

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Dziebel has doctorates in both history and anthropology and is currently both advisor to the Great Russian Encyclopedia and senior anthropologist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky advertising agency. His extremely dense work is actually three books in one. The first is a history of kinship studies from the early 19th century to the present. The second is a comparative study of kinship terminology among non-Indo-European languages, for which he has also prepared a data base published on the internet. The third section, highly controversial, as he admits, uses anthropology, mitochondrial studies and linguistics to suggest that the "out of Africa" model of human origins may be in error and that the first humans actually came from the Americas and spread from there to the rest of the world.

Memory Traces
Memory Traces

Author: Laura M. Amrhein

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2015-10-28

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1457196336

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"In Memory Traces, art historians and archaeologists come together to examine the nature of sacred space in Mesoamerica. Through five well-known and important centers of political power and artistic invention in Mesoamerica—Tetitla at Teotihuacan, Tula Grande, the Mound of the Building Columns at El Tajín, the House of the Phalli at Chichén Itzá, and Tonina—contributors explore the process of recognizing and defining sacred space, how sacred spaces were viewed and used both physically and symbolically, and what theoretical approaches are most useful for art historians and archaeologists seeking to understand these places.Memory Traces acknowledges that the creation, use, abandonment, and reuse of sacred space has a strongly recursive relation to collective memory and meanings linked to the places in question, and reconciles issues of continuity and discontinuity of memory in ancient Mesoamerican sacred spaces. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Mesoamerican studies and material culture, art historians, architectural historians, and cultural anthropologists."

Semiotics of Culture
Semiotics of Culture

Author: Irene Portis Winner

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-07-22

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3110823136

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No detailed description available for "Semiotics of Culture".

The Huasteca
The Huasteca

Author: Katherine A. Faust

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2015-04-09

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 0806149566

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The Huasteca, a region on the northern Gulf Coast of Mexico, was for centuries a pre-Columbian crossroads for peoples, cultures, arts, and trade. Its multiethnic inhabitants influenced, and were influenced by, surrounding regions, ferrying unique artistic styles, languages, and other cultural elements to neighboring areas and beyond. In The Huasteca: Culture, History, and Interregional Exchange, a range of authorities on art, history, archaeology, and cultural anthropology bring long-overdue attention to the region’s rich contributions to the pre-Columbian world. They also assess how the Huasteca fared from colonial times to the present. The authors call critical, even urgent attention to a region highly significant to Mesoamerican history but long neglected by scholars. Editors Katherine A. Faust and Kim N. Richter put the plight and the importance of the Huasteca into historical and cultural context. They address challenges to study of the region, ranging from confusion about the term “Huasteca” (a legacy of the Aztec conquest in the late fifteenth century) to present-day misconceptions about the region’s role in pre-Columbian history. Many of the contributions included here consider the Huasteca’s interactions with other regions, particularly the American Southeast and the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. Pre-Columbian Huastec inhabitants, for example, wore trapezoid-shaped shell ornaments unique in Mesoamerica but similar to those found along the Mississippi River. With extensive examples drawn from archaeological evidence, and supported by nearly 200 images, the contributors explore the Huasteca as a junction where art, material culture, customs, ritual practices, and languages were exchanged. While most of the essays focus on pre-Columbian periods, a few address the early colonial period and contemporary agricultural and religious practices. Together, these essays illuminate the Huasteca’s significant legacy and the cross-cultural connections that still resonate in the region today.